Condemned Memoir
Elfen Lied

by: Kisanzi

Studio: Visualized Nightmare Studios

Download Video

Competitions:
-Nan Desu Kan 2007, NDK AMV Contest 2007 (2007-09-15)
-Anime Weekend Atlanta 13, AWA 13 Expo Contest (2007-09-21)

Notes from the Creator:
-Winner: Best Horror Video of the Year in AnimeMusicVideos.org Viewers Choice Awards 2008-

I'll start off by saying that this video is by far the most unique AMV I've edited. This concept came to me earlier on in the year while I was listening to the song and just kept developing. I actually envisioned the video to Elfen Lied before I had even seen the show. I knew the basis of the plot and certain scenes, but the song, lyrics and concept all fit perfectly in my mind. So the bulk of the video was envisioned and planned without me actually knowing if many shots I imagined were actually in the show. But luckily, Elfen Lied turned out to be greater than I had imagined and after watching it, I knew I had to take on this video. This is the first vid that I have edited that has felt more like editing a live action music video. I had to edit a normal AMV with effects, transitions, etc. But after that I had to set up camera angles and rooms in 3D and animate and position the characters. So that leads me to the idea behind the video.

If you've seen Elfen Lied then I'm sure you know of Lucy's situation in the show. She is a girl destined to evolve mankind by killing it off. Throughout the show Lucy leads a double life. These two lives being the innocence she has as a child or when she is Nyu, and the darker primal side of her that is driven to kill. Even though her primal side is violent, she still possesses regret for her feelings and memories or her past. So with that said, I wanted to present this element of the show in a custom way. Instead of just showing images of her innocence and animosity clashing, I wanted to separate both personalities inside Lucy in their own subconscious spaces. So basically, Lucy's innocence has her own room where she is confined to view the happiness and innocence that she experienced in her past. While her grown up, violent persona is trapped in her own room where she must watch her horrible mistakes and murders in her past. But as the vid progresses the two rooms slowly merge and ultimately Lucy's older violent self ends up tainting and ruining her innocent, childhood self that she once was. I hope that wasn't too confusing because it's not that complex if you've seen or know about the show.

Obviously, the biggest challenge of this video was creating the 3D rooms that each character persona is trapped in. I wanted the older Lucy's room to be very derelict and rundown, while the younger one had a more soothing and dreamlike room. It was quite a feat building these rooms, rotoing the characters, editing the wall projections and adding atmosphere FX. As I said earlier, this video felt more like I was making a live action short film than an AMV. Keyframing the camera angles and shots took alot of tweaking to get just right, and then mixing that with the actual AMV presented more of a challenge. In the end, a good majority of this video is custom FX and greatly altered footage from the show, and it's the custom animation, like the writing, blood tears, eye render and cutouts became my favorite parts of the video.

I'm very pleased with the overall look and mood of the video. It was a venture into areas of After Effects that I haven't tried before and it was incredibly educational and enjoyable to develop. My least favorite aspect of this type of editing is the ridiculous amount of rendering time that 3D takes, but it comes with the territory. I hope that fans of the show see the connection that I had with the characters and enjoy the video. This was by no means a small effort, alot of time and sleepless nights went into this vid because of how excited I would get to see each scene near completion. Overall I consider this vid a large step into a different level of editing for me and I couldn't be more happy with the result. Please enjoy the vid!

Programs used:
Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5
Abobe Photoshop CS
Adobe After Effects 6.5
Riot Gear